'Every Tata Group company has to do AI transition,' says Chairman N Chandrasekaran

Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran on Wednesday said he's "an India bull" and he sees every company of the conglomerate going through an artificial intelligence transition. 

Chandrasekaran was in conversation with Business Today Editor Sourav Majumdar as they discussed "Reinventing Tata: Redirecting the Colossus. Connecting with the Consumer. Successes and Failures" at BT Mindrush in Mumbai.

He also said that the conglomerate is entering five new sectors, including expansion of Air India, super app.

"All our businesses have to do massive transformation in four dimensions: artificial intelligence transition, energy transition, supply chain transition and talent transition," he said.

"Every company has to do the AI transition, whether it's B2B or B2C. We need to train our employees in new technologies because we think AI will be a disruptor and it's real and it has implications on jobs. It has implications on skills that are required for future. It has huge regulatory issue because different governments are reacting directly and we (India) have to take a lead on regulatory framework for it," he said.

On a different note, he said that he is very bullish on India and bulk of the salt-to-IT conglomerate's capital investments over the next five years will happen in India.

"Our capital investments for the next five years, 60-70% will be in India. The (planned) investment is about $90 billion, around $70 billion will be in India," said Chandrasekaran.

He further said that while the conglomerate will grow at around 20 per cent year-on-year, the domestic growth will be relatively higher.

He further elaborated that while there is no slowdown in consumer business, the growth in demand in tier-2 locations is higher when compared to the metros or tier-1 cities.